Commons Speaker Michael Martin Resigns

Commons Speaker Michael Martin will step down on June 21 following the MPs' expenses scandal.

Making the announcement at the start of the Parliamentary session, Mr Martin said he was resigning "in order that unity can be maintained" in the Commons.

"Since I came to this House 30 years ago, I have always felt that the House is at its best when it is united," he said.

"In order that unity can be maintained, I have decided that I will relinquish the office of Speaker on Sunday June 21. This will allow the House to proceed to elect a new Speaker on Monday June 22.

"That is all I have to say on this matter."

He then called for questions to the Foreign Secretary who said: "The entire House will respect your wish that we proceed with our business today.

"We shall make our tributes at a later date."

Mr Martin's spokeswoman said the Speaker would stand down as MP for Glasgow North East on June 21, sparking a by-election in the traditionally safe Labour seat.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "The Speaker of course is under many, many pressures. He's got to make sure that all sections of the House have their voices heard.

"I think that on reflection people will want to thank the Speaker for what he's done."

And Tory leader David Cameron said: "I think it was, in the end, the right thing for him to do because obviously he'd lost the confidence of the House of Commons."

The Speaker has been under pressure over the issue since last year when he fought, in court, to keep MPs' expenses claims secret.

When the details were released by the Telegraph, he angered MPs by appearing more concerned with finding out how they were leaked than with their contents.

Yesterday Tory MP Douglas Carswell tabled a motion of no confidence in Mr Martin but the Speaker refused to allow MPs to ask questions about it.

He told the public and the Commons he was "profoundly sorry" for his role in the affair but said the motion could not be debated because it was not "substantive".

Extraordinary scenes followed as a series of MPs rose to demand he stand aside or submit to a vote of no confidence.

Sky's political correspondent Joey Jones said: "I think the likelihood is that friends of Michael Martin will have told him to think about the situation and to consider the events of yesterday, when he had no control of the House of Commons.

"He will have reflected on that overnight.

"I am sure that he will have taken counsel from his fellow MPs, perhaps particularly among the Scottish MPs, and decided that this was the time to go."

Mr Carswell told Sky News it gave him no pleasure to have played a part in bringing Mr Martin down, but said the House of Commons needed a new Speaker to help guide it out of the current crisis.

The Harwich and Clacton MP said: "I have acted not as his enemy and least of all as an opposition MP. I have acted as somebody who cares passionately for the parliamentary system.

"I believe we have found ourselves in a moral ditch and we need reform and change to get out of that ditch and restore dignity to politics."

Labour's Kate Hoey, one of the MPs whose public rebuke by Mr Martin focused discontent with his performance, said his departure was necessary if reform is to take place.

"He has been a Speaker who had actually tried to prevent some of this information coming out, spent money trying to get us exempted from the Freedom of Information Act - part of what seemed to be a very, very small coterie of the Establishment who wanted things not to change," she said.

Mr Martin was widely denounced for allowing police into the Palace of Westminster to search senior Tory Damian Green's office last year.

Several MPs broke convention by publicly suggesting he should stand down, on the grounds that he could no longer be relied on to protect their rights.

Mr Martin was forced to take the unusual step of making a statement to the House, saying the police had neither a search warrant nor his permission to raid Mr Green's office.

He laid the blame on Serjeant-at-Arms Jill Pay, who he said had "regrettably" granted permission without his explicit say-so.